Not sure why it's a new trend among fic readers to assume if the fic has not been posted within the week it's inappropriate to comment on it, like the fic has to be hot out of the oven to give feedback for.
I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.
Just comment on the fic. Doesn't matter how old it is.
I am currently trying to cook up a hucklerabbot fic with this vibe but I fear it's gonna take me A WHILE cuz there are a lot of abstract thoughts and vibes in my head about it but not many concrete words and sentences...
quarterly reminder that if i reblog something ai-generated it is 110% and always an accident and for the love of god please tell me so i can delete it from my blog
Peopleee, I did it, I finally posted my first fanfiction on AO3! It's the first fanfiction I've written in years and I'm kinda proud...it's Hucklerobby pretend relationship with some spice sooo if you are interested please check it out :)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
If you have any thoughts at all on this, please please comment, I love engaging with people in fandom space and I will inhale all of your words eagerly.
The complicated feeling of starting a new fanfiction out of necessity because you can't find exactly what you're looking for...and you're all like sash omg I'm so excited I get to have ideas and to write this but also I actually have to write this damn...like I just wanna read it now, but I gotta come up with all these fancy words first ugh
Peopleee, I did it, I finally posted my first fanfiction on AO3! It's the first fanfiction I've written in years and I'm kinda proud...it's Hucklerobby pretend relationship with some spice sooo if you are interested please check it out :)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Look, I think Mohabbot is really cute actually and I love their scene in season two and I think Samira deserves so much more recognition and to be happy...I am just so insanely hucklerabbot/rabbot/huckleabbot pilled that I cannot imagine this man being with any other woman than his dead wife and the thought of him being with anyone other than Robby and/or Dennis just doesn't work in my head.
This prompt was from a lovely user who wishes to remain anonymous, and who wanted to see Dennis' blatant Robby favouritism!
The thing is, Robby is undoubtedly Dennis' favourite. Dana likes to say that Abbot can sulk all he wants at being a close second, but first runner-up is still a loser (Dennis makes sure to rub his head against Dr Abbot's belly extra hard when Dana tells him that).
But there's really no denying it, and Dennis makes it very hard for anyone to try.
He's fond of all the staff, and he's always got a tail wag ready to greet them all when he lays eyes on them, but it's embarrassingly obvious to everyone that Robby is different. Whether Dennis is seeing the man for the first time that day or the fiftieth, whenever Robby greets him, his tail waggles so frantically that it makes his whole lower body wiggle along with it. It doesn't seem deterred by the fact that Robby's own fondness, while no less obvious, is significantly calmer. Robby's face relaxes just a little when he sets eyes on Dennis, and he smiles with his eyes just as much as his lips, in a way that Perlah and Princess remark makes it look a little bit like something is melting inside him. They don't say this in English, and Trinity hasn't ever told people why it makes her snort.
Dennis is extremely diligent about his job. He will spend hours with the patients who need him, and the doctors and nurses are in agreement that this has freed up a significant amount of their time, because often what their regular boarders need from them is someone to sit and listen to them. Sometimes, when all has been said and done, and regular checks are coming back clean, and the only thing they can really do is house patients until beds open up upstairs, people are just scared and frustrated and need someone to sit and listen to them and tell them that it's going to be okay, that they haven't been forgotten. And try as they might, before Dennis it just wasn't possibly for them all to provide that without putting other patients at risk.
But Dennis is seemingly infinitely patient, and happy to sit with people even when they are angry and unhappy, and he will listen to their complaints with understanding and an almost painful level of empathy. He will curl up against those who just want something warm and loving to hold onto, and he will make soft crooning sounds and let people touch his ears and tail, will weather their storms until they break and begin to ease.
Frankly, Robby thinks Dennis is a goddamn miracle worker. The staff have more time, so they're happier. The patients have someone to listen to them when they need to complain about how unfair it all is, so they're happier. And Gloria is the happiest Robby thinks he's ever seen her. She barely even threatens his job anymore, and sometimes she even compliments him. It's unnerving and he wishes she wouldn't, but he can't argue with results.
Needless to say, Dennis is very busy, and he seems to love his work.
That being said, with almost every spare minute that he has, he is either with Robby, trotting along at his side, or looking for Robby.
When he's not immediately in sight, Dennis scans the department with sharp eyes. If he can see Robby through the glass doors of the trauma bays, he relaxes just a little, because he can see Robby. He knows where he is. But he will always try to keep an eye on what's happening in the trauma bay, wants to watch Robby's body language, because if it's going badly then he wants to be there for the man afterwards. Robby has a tendency to push through all the bad things that happen, to stride from a patient's death, to informing next of kin, to the next patient, to the next patient and the next one, and the next one.
If he can, Dennis tries to immediately be by Robby's side immediately following a patient death. There will be a time and place for him to help Robby break the news to the family, but usually that's not until a little later.
And Dennis knows it's probably annoying, but he tries to stand in Robby's way, just a little bit, when he emerges from an unsuccessful code. Robby's first instinct will be to move to the next patient that needs him, and Dennis would never get in the way of someone that needs medical attention, but he also thinks that someone needs to be thinking of Robby.
His Robby needs someone there for him, needs a break between the chaos and heavy weight of responsibility.
So he stands. He stands in front of Robby and slowly drifts closer, waits until the man's shoulders drop just a little, until he's sure he's not going to get a gentle but firm hand pushing him away. He will settle himself under Robby's arm - if he can get away with it, he'll wrap both his arms around Robby's chest, but sometimes he knows that won't be tolerated. So he will stay there, pressed to Robby's side, and let out a soft, mournful sigh. Usually Robby will allow his chest to loosen enough to subconsciously mimic the sound, and at that point he will usually squeeze an arm around Dennis' waist.
"It's okay, kid. Sometimes you do everything right, and it just isn't meant to be." Dennis lets Robby murmur the words gently into both sets of ears, as though he is the one who needs to hear them. "We gave it our best shot. We put everything into it. That's what we're here for, that's our promise, and we - we fulfilled it today."
Dennis' eyes will sometimes sting, and he doesn't hide it from Robby. His poor, good Robby who has red, watery eyes and who doesn't know - and wouldn't understand why even if he did - that some of the pain in his scent ebbs when he soothes Dennis in these moments.
---
It's obvious to everyone that Dennis has fully and helplessly attached himself to Robby, in a way that he's probably not fully aware of.
To the staff of the Pitt, it's simply a fact of life. A pleasant, often sweetly amusing state of affairs, and one that has only served to benefit them. Nothing really needs to be said or explained, no context given.
The other departments don't quite understand as well. They understand just enough to be occasionally insensitive.
They know that the ED has a service hybrid, but they often don't know his name. What they do know, from seeing brief glimpses when they are called down for a consult, is that Dennis is -
"Robby's dog, right?"
Dennis blinks, and Robby's scent sours just a little.
"Dennis." Robby's voice is terse. He nods to the large, somehow sharp-looking man who strode into trauma 2 beside them. "This is Dr Park, he's out ortho consult today. Dr Park, this is Dennis, he's our support worker."
The man's eyes bore into Dennis', and he almost wants to tell the man that dogs don't usually like unbroken eye contact.
That would be rude, so instead he gives the man one brief, twitch of a tail wag.
"It's nice to meet you Dr Park."
The man grins, and Dennis almost wants to do the same, just to show him that his teeth are sharper. He shakes himself a little instead, allows himself a small sneeze to feel better.
"You're a bad liar, Dennis." The man is still smiling, and it doesn't look...totally aggressive? Dennis has absolutely no idea what to do with this man, so he glances to Robby for guidance.
"Dr Park." Dennis almost cringes from the tone of Robby's voice. It's not often one he hears from the man. It softens ever so slightly when Robby turns his focus partially back to Dennis.
"Don't worry Dennis, there's a reason Dr Park chose a specialty where all his patients are unconscious."
Dennis' eyes dart back to Dr Park's face, wondering if he's going to need to try to find Dana or call for help.
Surprisingly, the man lets out a snort that would probably be laughter on anyone else, and he raises his hands in a show of surrender, even if he is still smirking.
"Alright, you can stand down. Social skills never were my special interest." Park smirks, and Robby flashes one of those overly-wide, too-bright smiles that he only gives to people he thinks are assholes but not worth actual concern, so Dennis figures it can't be that bad.
"Not like you, huh bud?" And now Dr Park is directly addressing him again, even though he kind of wishes he wouldn't. "I've been hearing all sorts of good things about you. Maybe I'll have to take you for a walk around my department."
"I was brought to work in the ED. Dr Robby is my boss - I like it here."
It's clear to everyone that nobody was expecting that. Dennis' own eyes went wide, and he flicked a nervous glance towards Robby, who was doing a poor job at hiding a smile.
"Jesus, Robinavitch," Dr Park whistled, and Dennis was surprised to see a smile twitch briefly across his face that wasn't full of teeth. "Does he bite, too?"
A calloused hand came to land on Dennis' head, and he made a conscious effort to hold himself still so Dr Park could try out smoothing down his ears. Maybe it would make the man less...himself. His strokes were heavy, like he was perhaps trying to drag Dennis' ears to the back of his head, but it wasn't actually rough or unkind.
"Dr Park, I might just bite if you don't get on with it and tell me what we can do here," Robby gestured at the patient before them who was, thankfully, blissfully unconscious.
---
Usually, Dennis is up and making his own rounds of the department before Robby is in. But sometimes, if he's been on a night shift, Dennis will still be sleeping soundly in the little room the hospital gave him, rolled firmly in the blankets they gave him, and the hoodies and miscellaneous items of staff clothing that some people maybe hadn't given him.
Robby likes to come in early some days - when the evenings have been too quiet, and the silence has stretched all the way into the early morning, despite the burble of the television. On those mornings he finds it easier to slough off the stale air of his bedroom and swap it for the antiseptic, electric buzz of the emergency department. Find Jack, make sure he's not getting too much air, share it with him if he is. Get an early start on handover, see what his day shift are going to be in for when the time comes.
Sometimes, Jack will break off mid-sentence in their pre-handover to smirk at something Robby is unaware of. His eyes will drift somewhere over Robby's shoulder, and only then will Robby become aware of the sound of gentle padding and soft snuffling.
"Dr Robby!"
Dennis is never what you'd exactly call graceful - he's not clumsy, but he's slightly too full of enthusiasm for life to achieve true elegance - but in the early mornings, he's truly something else.
A soft, warm weight shoves itself into Robby's side with just enough momentum that Robby thinks he's probably stumbled just a little. A soft head wiggles its way forcefully under Robby's chin, and he has to suppress a twitch when he feels a cold nose snuffling, sleepy but rapid and keen, across the skin of his chest and neck that show through his scrubs.
"Good morning, Dennis."
Robby's voice is soft and low, catering to the closeness of Dennis' sensitive ears to his mouth.
Dennis' weight leans even more heavily against him, and he surrenders himself to the inevitability of wrapping an arm around him. Jack's smirk becomes something wider and warmer, and Robby lifts his free hand to flip him the bird while Dennis' eyes are closed.
"Did you have a good night? Jack take care of you and let you take enough naps?"
"Jealousy's an ugly colour on you, brother."
"Dr Abbot gave me his hoodie for my day bed."
Robby's eyebrows have never raised as far and as fast, locking eyes with a thoroughly unrepentant and unmoved Jack Abbot.
"Yeah? That's very generous of Dr Abbot. Not his usual style."
Jack flipped him off, and Dennis made a little huffing sound into Robby's neck.
"That's not nice. Dr Abbot's nice, and you haven't given me one of your hoodies."
"Yeah, Mike -"
"I never gave - because you took my hoodie! Which I allowed you to do, because you were looking right at me when you did it, Dennis."
It was a matter of plain fact that Dennis had crept over to Robby several months ago, fixed him with huge watery eyes as he had reached out and grasped the hoodie hanging on the back of Robby's chair and ever so slowly pulled it towards himself. He'd never looked away from Robby, and he had his ears flattened all the way back in their apology position, tail pressed between his legs but tentatively wagging in what Robby very much identified as begging forgiveness rather than permission.
Robby had thought about protesting - the AC was brutal in the hospital and it never stopped - but he just couldn't refuse the trifecta of sad hopefulness aimed his way. He had clicked his tongue softly and jerked his head in an approximation of permission. It had worked well enough for Dennis, whose tail remained in that sheepish position but had sped up into its turbo-happy wag. He had dragged Robby's hoodie to the empty shelf space beneath the charge station desk where he kept his so-called 'day bed'.
When Robby had first asked Dennis if he'd like a quiet area he could retreat to if things became a little bit too much, he had been expecting either a refusal, or a request for one of the on-call rooms - either of which Robby would have accepted. What he hadn't been expecting was for Dennis to shuffle on his feet and for his eyes to dart around them, the very picture of discomfort.
"Dennis, you know you can ask me for anything you need. Even if it's something I can't actually give you, you know I'll never be mad, right kid?" He had softened his voice, tried to meet Dennis' darting eyes.
Eventually, Dennis had met his gaze, and Robby could see the effort it took him. His sharp little teeth were buried in his bottom lip, and he gave one last uncomfortable wiggle before he pointed suddenly at the unoccupied space underneath Robby's workstation.
"Can I go there?"
Robby blinked. Looked at where Dennis was pointing, back up at his hopeful eyes.
"Denny - you know we can get you somewhere with a little more space-"
"No, I - I like smaller spaces. It's not like I'd be spending all day and night there. I just...I like to have somewhere I can go, but I don't wanna be completely separated from y - from everyone. And I like being kinda squished so..."
He'd shrugged, face flushed and a little miserable at having to confess to his needs, and Robby felt kinda like an asshole for questioning it.
So Dennis got the day-bed under the desk. And Robby wasn't going to complain, because after the first few instances where he'd completely forgotten that Dennis was there, only to be startled by a hand clutching his leg or the sound of Dennis quietly gnawing on one of his rope toys, it was actually quite...nice. Even when Dennis didn't say anything to him, Robby would usually find that Dennis would scoot himself a little out of his hidey-hole so he could lean against Robby's legs while he updated charts and caught up on his emails. When Robby came in early, it was usually how they spent their mornings.
This particular morning, Robby had walked into a particularly full house, however.
"Denny, you wanna give me a tour of what the night shift is leaving us?"
Dennis' eyes had drifted shut and he was still leaning heavily against Robby's side, face hidden against his throat and the comforting, steady beat of his pulse.
"Uh-huh." He hummed in agreement, not opening his eyes moving from his spot against Robby.
Jack huffed a quiet laugh, handed Robby an iPad.
"Let's show Dr Robby what he's dealing with, Denny."
Dennis yawned, wagged his tail.
---
After they were done with handover and it was time for the rest of the day shift to have started clocking in, Jack had stretched, and Dennis winced at the sound of something popping. He had un-velcro'd himself from Robby's side to pad over to the other man, plastering himself against Jack's broad chest while his arms were still stretching.
"You make old man sounds," he mumbled fondly into Jack's chest. He smiled, tail twitching at the feeling of Jack's laughter reverberating through his chest.
"God, you're such a little asshole when Robby's around." Jack's arms landed around Dennis' shoulders, squeezing him in a hug that made him mumble contentedly. Dennis rubbed his face against Jack's chest.
"Are you okay?" He whispered into Jack's scrub top. The man quieted in response to Dennis' own volume. He stroked a hand gently over Dennis' ears, curling the extra soft fur behind them around his fingers.
"Yeah, Denny, I'm good. Just tired, you know?" He murmured into Dennis' hair, mindful of the ears. "Nothing a good day's sleep won't fix."
Dennis propped his chin on Jack's chest, looked up at him to gauge the truth while Jack's hand continued to smooth his ears flat. He seemed to be mostly content with what he found in Jack's face, before it switched to a mischievous smile.
He nodded to something behind Dennis.
"Robby's going to start rounds without you if you don't detach."
Dennis jerked upwards, ears pricked in alarm and tail stiff. Robby hadn't left, but he was looking at the iPad in a way that probably did suggest that rounds were imminent.
He uncoiled from Jack, prior sleepiness all but gone.
"Have a good morning, Dr Abbot!" He gave Jack one last nuzzle before he trotted keenly back to Robby's side, bumping his head into the man's shoulder.
"No fuckin' loyalty," Jack grumbled as he gathered his keys and prepared to head to the locker room.
"Just because it's not directed at you, doesn't mean the kid lacks loyalty, brother."
I genuinely can't stand people who think they're somehow superior for thinking soft subby whitaker is gross and mischaracterizes him like sorry I literally enjoy domtop whitaker cocky whitaker etc but acting like he's not canonically a mild-mannered, gentle guy who raised his voice 1 singular time and apologized immediately after, blushed at praise, and just wants to help people, is insane.
like we're not forcing him to be soft and sweet. he is. why can't you let a man be gentle? why, just because "he's buff" "he literally works on a farm" does he have to fit YOUR standard of "manliness"? you think THAT'S not weird? you think a guy can't be a little soft and subby and also strong? you think those things are contradictory? you think being kind or being a submissive makes you inherently "weak"? like gtfo.
People! I just finished writing the first fanfic in like 10 years...idk if it's any good and I'm currently having it beta read by a friend but I think it's crazy that the Pitt was able to launch me back into engaging with fandom culture like I haven't since I was like 13. Might update here when l do post it.